Interview: Last non-London fresher finally uses ‘peak’ correctly

The Whip has conducted various exclusive tell-all interviews with a number of Bristol freshers on the ups and downs of first-year. In this exposition, Dominic Balls discusses his toughest challenge upon arriving a university.Whip: So did you manage to get settled quite quickly?

Dominic Young: Yes, relatively. There were some pretty nice people around and I made friends with my flat fairly quickly. One thing that did confuse and concern me at first was the language of my mates from London, though. Although they are all really sweet, a lot of them kept using words that I hadn’t heard of. Well, I mean I had heard them before, but not used in the way they were.

W: What sort of thing do you mean?

DY: Well first of all, people kept talking about ‘allowing’ things during welcome week. I couldn’t work out what ‘allowing registration’ meant, so I just went along and gave the guys I’d met on the first day a ring to see where they were, but they told me that apparently there was an agreement to skip it. They were drinking beer near the suspension bridge instead, which I did remember discussing. I just thought it would be after registration, not during.

W: Were there any other moments of confusion like this one?

DY: Yes, a fair few. The other tricky one was ‘peak’. I just couldn’t establish whether it was a good or a bad thing for ages. Like you’d imagine it’d be good right? Peak is the top of something! But, in reality,it’s bad. For example, if you said you had lots of work to do tonight, I might say ‘Oh, that’s peak’, rather than ‘Oh, that’s annoying’. It’s a hugely useful term, albeit a little subtle for some people to grasp.

W: What was it like when you finally began nailing the slang?

DY: It is impossible to express in the words of men the feeling of acceptance and euphoria that overwhelmed me. I was finally ‘calm’. ‘Beg-friend’ Dominic was dead. I became a Londoner, a boy of the Big Smoke, Mr East End and King of the King’s Road incarnate. It was wonderful.

Reports emerging from Hiatt Baker hall all indicate that since learning the terms, Dominic has landed a girlfriend, begun wearing luminous road-man shoes, and recently purchased a ticket to see ‘Deep Medi’ at Motion.

The University itself has confirmed that Dominic was the very last first year to finally get a handle on the ‘peak’, and expressed delight that he had managed to catch up with the pack.